Tropospheric and stratospheric digitized aerosol turbidity profiles (λ = 0.55 µm) at White Sands, New Mexico - instant values, and monthly, bi-monthly and multi-monthly averages (1963-1975)

DOI

A set of 11 aerosol turbidity profiles (ATP) and 2 aerosol extinction profiles (AEP), observed with searchlight at λ = 0.55 µm in New Mexico at 32ºN, has been digitized from plots in scientific articles (Elterman, et al., 1973; Elterman, 1976). They cover the period February to June 1963 and September 1965 to May 1975, complementing the already rescued and previously published 105 individual AEP, corresponding to 36 days, between December 1963 and December 1964 (Antuña-Marrero et al., 2024). Eleven AEP are calculated (AEPc) from the ATP, and the corresponding stratospheric aerosol optical depth (sAOD) between 12 and 25 km is also derived. Estimates of the digitization's errors for the AEPc and the sAOD are also calculated using information available in the literature. The combined set of rescued AEP reported here and the earlier rescued set of AEP from searchlight observations, are the only AEP dataset covering the period between the 1963 Mt Agung and the 1974 Fuego eruptions at northern midlatitudes. In this regard two relevant features identified in the AEP and the sAOD (Antuña-Marrero et al., 2026). The first, using AEPc from March and April 1963 identified what could be the date of arrival of the stratospheric aerosols from the Mt. Agung first eruption on March 17th 1963. This fact challenges the accepted criteria that the arrival of the stratospheric aerosols from Mt Agung arrived at the northern hemisphere midlatitudes in the second half of 1963. The second feature evidences two anomalous increases of the sAOD during a period supposed to be the decay of the sAOD from Mt. Agung eruption. They show our limited knowledge and understanding of the 1963 Mt Agung volcanic stratospheric aerosol transport.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.992623
Related Identifier IsPartOf https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.992616
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.949377
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15060635
Related Identifier References https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0607859.pdf
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.15.001113
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.12.000330
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.992623
Provenance
Creator Antuña-Marrero, Juan Carlos (ORCID: 0000-0002-7037-015X); Calle, Abel; Añel, Juan Antonio ORCID logo; Cachorro, Victoria E ORCID logo; de la Torre, Laura; Barriopedro, David (ORCID: 0000-0001-6476-944X); García-Herrera, Ricardo; Pacheco, Javier
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2026
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; Data access is restricted (moratorium, sensitive data, license constraints); https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess false
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 392 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-105.817 LON, 32.783 LAT)